A hint as to the attractiveness of the company to AssetCo comes from Fleming’s comment that “Saracen is a great brand and it has all the permissions needed to be an asset manager”.
Graham Campbell, chief executive of Saracen, says: “I think the big benefit of this deal for us is that our distribution is likely to improve. When you have funds as small as ours, it is very hard to get meetings with the big decision-makers, but I think having [Fleming] and his colleagues on board will help with that. And what we provide to AssetCo is a framework for a fund management business, and funds that have an excellent long-term track record.”
Fleming says his initial priority will be to help each of the companies in which AssetCo has a stake to grow “organically”, while helping Gilbert and deputy chairman Peter McKellar, with future acquisitions.
Fleming says: “None of us in the senior leadership team see this as a short-term project, I’m in my 50s and hope I have a lot of years to go – Gilbert is not slowing down. And [McKellar] has lost none of his hunger. Gilbert is an inspiring person to work with, he admires [former Man Utd and Aberdeen football manager] Alex Ferguson a lot, and like him, wants to do things to change things and build things.”
Gilbert built Aberdeen Asset Management largely through acquisition, but that was at a very different era in the market, a time when there were not hordes of private equity companies seeking to purchase the same assets.
Some industry figures believe it could be a challenge to replicate the Aberdeen growth model today, as valuations are likely to be higher due to the extra competition for assets
Fleming says his colleagues' experience of acquisitions will prevent them from overpaying. But it is worth pointing out that the acquisition of the tiny Rize ETF business, which had an AUM of about $450m (£332m today), came at a price of 8 per cent of assets. A similar deal conducted by Amundi to acquire the Lyxor ETF business came at a price that equated to less than 1 per cent of AUM, according to our sister publication the Financial Times.
Fleming says three of the trends he believes are long-term in the industry and which he hopes his business can capture are thematic investing, the rise of passive products and private assets investing.
Rize ETF tends to focus on themes, one example is cannabis production stocks, rather than countries, and all of the products are passive.
McKellar ran the private assets business at Aberdeen Standard Investments.
